Aircraft pilots are bringing portable computing systems on aircraft and desire to utilize applications on such personal computing system to perform aircraft related functions, e.g. to upload flight plans entered into a personal computing system to the aircraft's flight management system, to determine the center of gravity of the aircraft, and to communicate with others such as airline operations centers. Aircraft are not typically designed to facilitate connection between a personal computing system and aircraft systems. Therefore, there is a need to cost effectively facilitate a secure connection between allowed personal computing systems and aircraft systems.